Each devastating school shooting sparks the instinct to “do something,” notes Jameson Ritter, a certified threat manager and security expert in Minneapolis. But too often, that “something” turns into new drills or security hardware.
If school leaders are serious about protecting students, they will respond with a prevention strategy known as “behavioral threat assessment and management,” often abbreviated BTAM, according to both Ritter and Jillian Haring, a behavior specialist who wrote the Sept. 4, 2025, opinion essay “‘This Kid Scares People’: A Behavior Specialist Shows Her Reality.” BTAM seeks to identify troubled students before they do harm. It asks the question, as Haring tells us, “What is this student trying to survive?” not just “Are they a threat?”
Despite increased mandates calling for the approach, both experts agree that too many schools continue to treat BTAM as a compliance checklist. They emphasize that the approach works best when it’s built as a culture. Done well, it requires leaders to institute a comprehensive, well understood program focused on observable behavior and current risk.
This downloadable outlines the culture and actions needed for the BTAM strategy to both reduce risk and respond to student needs.
